Cancer Selfies

Cannibis for nausea

The problem with finding your nausea solution in a legally intoxicating substance is that if you've got to run errands, you have to feel full sick the whole time, and you better be damn sure you don't need anything when you start treatment.

From the comments

James Petrosky: Not looking for medical advice. I see my oncologist soon, my usual anti nausea (perchloroperazine) should work for how I'm feeling. I tried to get some earlier, but was told I have to wait. The cancer centre can do a lot for you while you're receiving treatment, but is apparently less willing between treatments.

I'm not in the habit of getting the same drugs, or similar types of drugs, from multiple doctors at once. I'm bipolar and simply cannot be trusted with that. If it was September and I had months of waiting to see my oncologist, I would talk to my nurse practitioner, but with two weeks I will not.

Perchloroperazine

Learned two things when trying to solve my nausea problem.

1. Perchloroperazine, the main nausea medicine they give me for chemotherapy induced nausea, has two other common uses. The first is as an anti anxiety medication, the second as an antipsychotic used to treat bipolar patients. I was at therapeutic doses for both.

2. Every other claimed health benefit of cannibis might be nonsense, but it really does work for nausea.

From the comments

James Petrosky: I should say, my dose was equivalent to the therapeutic dose over the days I took it, which is 3-5 days. Not properly therapeutic. I can't even say for certain it leveled me out, but it feels like it had an affect.

Gravol is powerless

Vomiting need so great even Gravol is useless against it.

It's dimenhydrate. I think everywhere else calls it something else, and normally I'd look it up, but even mild salsa is awful to throw up so you're just going to have to check for yourself (Dramamine in the States at least)

A house with two bathrooms

Screw international travel, a new car and whatever else I used to think* the purpose of affluence was, the new unattainable dream is a house with a seperate bathroom for throwing up and for regular use. Preferably next to each other.

*brain too mush to remember what I used to dream about, but it wasn't that horseshit. It sounds okay, though.

From the comments

James Petrosky: This might not work because that's twice the bathrooms to clean, but I'd like to try.
I'd also like Thomasin not to be in the room when I throw up, because I usually can't close the door in time, but cat logic demands she join me.

No level of hydration seems to help

A frustrating symptom I have is being constantly dehydrated enough that my digestive system causes me a lot of grief, but also feeling sick whenever I drink enough water to do anything about the situation. This morning I got a decent amount of IV fluids, and I felt mostly normal for once.

From the comments

James Petrosky: Soft drinks are better on the stomach, but help the dehydration less.
Some chemo patients get IV fluids as part of their recovery. It would trap me in my apartment for more days per cycle, but I'm still going to ask about it.

Sleep, hopefully not a side effect of the shot

For the first time in 2.5 weeks, I didn't spend an hour throwing up in the middle of the night AND managed to sleep through the night.

No idea why. Hope it wasn't Covid-19 vaccine side effects.